1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus for establishing a personal information environment in a group work by enabling a user to individually control information from his viewpoint of which is distributedly controlled by respective unique control methods in a variety of systems concerning the group work.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typical functions of a groupware system which aids a smooth group work are such as a mail, a library and a forum. Among the foregoing functions, information of, for example, the library and the forum are centrally arranged by a manager of the system. Thus, this management style is effective in routine work or the like which require a specific management.
However, each user has a peculiar method in information arrangement which usually disagrees with the managed arrangement method. If, for example, each person individually gives or changes names of the documents which a group manages by a file server, the document file is substantially lost though the contents of the original file exist. In a case where a plurality of members in the group individually store files in a folder which the group commonly manages, an icon which is unimportant for a certain member may be placed adjacent to an icon of an important file for the member on a folder view, or, icons of files important and unimportant for a member are displayed disorderly.
However, if each user intends to arrange information in an individual manner, a method of arranging information is determined in each system, such as a position and size of icons of a file, folder, mail and the like, a pattern of a figure to be pasted on a view for displaying icons of grouped files by a folder, a mail or the like, an arrangement order of data when being displayed as a list, and a position of insertion of a blank line into data lines. Further, a sharer of a shared document stored in a server or the like cannot be identified. Thus, a user is unable to manage information from his viewpoint.